Zolkiew was built as a citadel at the end of the 16th century, as the estate of a noble family. In 1600, the city’s landholder, Hetman (a high ranking military commander) Stanislaw Zolkiewski, allowed the Jews (for the most part former residents of the city of Lviv) to settle in the city,
where they built a synagogue and bathhouse and established a residential quarter adjoining the gate in the city wall. They were permitted to build their homes in this section. Because he was interested in having the Jews settle in his city, and having been persuaded to do so by his agent, Yisrael Ben-Yosef, also called Edelis, Zolkiewski issued a written grant in 1616 according to which the Jews were once again entitled to build a synagogue and a mikve [a communal bathhouse], while an area of land was set aside for a cemetery. He also permitted them to engage in all kinds of trade, like the Christians. However, just at that time Zolkiewski was commissioned Royal Hetman and as a result was absent for months at a time from Zolkiew. In his absence his wife, Regina, managed the city’s affairs and attempted to limit the growth of the Jewish population by imposing special taxes. Following the deaths of the Hetman and his wife, Zolkiew passed into the hands of their son-in-law, Stanislaw Danielowich, who confirmed the rights of the Jews and even increased them (enlargement of the residential area, permission to build a stone synagogue, etc).
In 1637, ownership of Zolkiew was transferred to the family of the nobleman Sobieski, which was related by marriage to the
Zolkiewski family (his mother, Sophia Theophila, was the granddaughter of Hetman Stanislaw Zolkiewski). Jan Sobieski inherited
the city. During the period in which he governed Zolkiew, he won an important victory over the Turks in the battle of Chotin in
1673, blocking the northward expansion of the Ottoman Empire. Because the king died in the same year, the nobility of Poland
agreed on a single candidate for the crown, the great victor over the Turks. In 1676, Jan Sobieski was chosen almost unanimously
to be king of Poland. During his rule over the city, and in particular following his succession to the Polish crown, the
settlement developed and grew from a provincial village to a full town and political center. The king, and his heirs after him,
behaved graciously toward the Jews, granting them many charters that expanded the legal base for their presence in Zolkiew. Among
other things, the Jews were granted the right to build the Great Synagogue.
The king’s personal physician, Dr Simcha Hausmann, and the customs inspector, Yaakov-Bezalel ben-Natan, contributed greatly to
the prosperity of the Zolkiew community during the Sobieski period. Dr Hausmann was at the king’s side when he was stricken by a
serious illness and moved from Lviv to Zolkiew. During the time he lived in Zolkiew (up to 1696) he was one of the heads of the
community and was known for his skill as a physician and for his great learning. He used his influence at the king’s court to
benefit his community. Yaakov-Bezalel ben-Natan served as the king’s Chief Customs Inspector. In this capacity he supervised the
customs stations and became exceedingly wealthy.
His lobbying activities on behalf of the Jews in general and the Zolkiew community in particular eventually bore fruit, with the sale of Zolkiew to the family of princes of the House of Radziwill in 1740. They, too, honored all of the former written agreements concerning the rights of the Jews. Nonetheless, during their time as overlords of the city the Catholic reaction began throughout all of Poland and its signs were felt in Zolkiew as well. The city’s residents tried to prevent the Jews from working in trades and skilled crafts. The Jews were forbidden to engage Christian servants and to be out in the city streets during the time of Christian processions. Additional taxes for the municipality and the church were levied on them. To evade having to pay these taxes the Jews of Zolkiew raised a great deal of money, as a result of which they fell deeply in debt. In 1750, the debts of the community reached a level of over 100,000 zlotys.
The decline in the economic status of the Zolkiew Jewish community was caused by many factors: the community undertook to feed and supply the armies that were garrisoned in the city. Jewish property was commandeered by these armies.
The earliest settlers in Zolkiew were apparently customs inspectors, tenants and those accompanying them, and merchants. As the city developed, the scope of economic activity in which the Jews were engaged also expanded and most of them worked in trade, especially in the areas of food supply, weaving, leather hides, furs, tailoring and hat making. A small minority of Jews worked in the trade and processing of timber. In the 18th century the Jews were involved in foreign trade: Zolkiew representatives appeared at fairs in Breslau and Leipzig and Jewish grain merchants exported their produce to foreign countries through Danzig. The production and distilling of alcohol were primarily in the hands of Jews, as were the brewing and marketing of beer and mead whose high quality was famous throughout Poland.
From the end of the 17th century and especially in the 18th century the number of workshops owned and run by Jews increased. Butchers,
bakers, tailors, furriers were organized in their own corporations, although they were required by law to make regular payments to the
guilds of Christian artisans.
Up until 1626 Zolkiew was actually annexed by the community of Lviv, which had the authority to issue permits to settle in Zolkiew and
work in a given occupation, and they even determined the amount to be paid in tax by every resident of Zolkiew. In 1626, the independent
community of Zolkiew was established and received its first rabbi, Rabbi Yehezkel Issachar ben-Hanoch Avraham, who served in this position
until 1637. From its very beginning the Jewish community of Zolkiew had a synagogue. The first synagogue was built in 1626, but within a
few years it had become too small for the needs of the growing Jewish population. Construction of the new synagogue was completed in
1690-1691. It was built in the style of the Polish Renaissance, in the form of a fortress with defensive walls and a dome supported by
gilded columns. Symbols of Poland and of the House of Sobieski in the interior of the building still existed in the period between the
two world wars.
At first the Jews of Zolkiev buried their dead in the cemetery of Lviv. Once the community had been granted independence, a local cemetery was consecrated with the approval of the city’s owner. It was expanded in the 17th century and in the course of time additional areas of land were annexed to it, as the need arose.
The hospital was built in the first half of the 17th century on a site adjoining the community hall and bathhouse. Paramedics were employed to work there by the community and from time to time there were also licensed physicians and even luminaries such as Dr Emanuel de Yona, the king’s personal physician. The community also maintained a pharmacy.
The community devoted special attention to the employment of teachers. From the second half of the 17th century on Zolkiew boasted a yeshiva with some 20 students. The Regulations of 1690 specify that heads of households were required to contribute to the upkeep of the yeshiva students. The city also had charitable institutions. Envoys were even sent to Zolkiew from Eretz Israel to raise donations for the support of the poor of the land. From 1683 to 1693 the emissary from Hebron, Rabbi Avraham Kinki, resided in Zolkiew, followed later, in 1746, by the emissary from Sidon, Rabbi Shlomo Ashkenazi. Upon the establishment of Zolkiew as an independent community, its representatives took part in the deliberations of the Four Nations Committee.
At the close of the 17th century a printing house was opened in Zolkiew by the well known printer from Amsterdam, Uri Feibush Halevi, from which time Zolkiew became one of the three centers of Hebrew typography in Poland (Lviv, Kracow and Zolkiew). As far back as 1692 Zolkiew saw the printing of a Sidur (prayer book) as well as the book “Derech Yam HaTalmud”. In the 18th century, Uri Feibush’s heirs split the printing plant between them, so that thereafter the city had two Hebrew language printing shops with eight printing presses. Publications emanating from the Zolkiew printing houses gained a reputation throughout Poland and abroad.
The period of Austrian rule: 1772-1918
The Austrian period followed a time of economic depression for the Jews of Zolkiew that had a severe impact on the economy of the Jewish community, and followed a period of great suffering resulting from the invasion of foreign armies. The community’s economic condition had deteriorated; its debts to the church and monasteries alone exceeded 12,000 zlotys, with the interest increasing every year.
During the Austrian period, Zolkiew’s economy in general and that of its Jews in particular was completely frozen and even in relative decline. Although the majority of the wholesale merchants continued to be Jews, very few of them ran large-scale businesses. In 1820, only 9 licensed wholesale merchants could be found in the entire district, 8 yeast makers, 4 cattle merchants, 5 barley merchants and 4 booksellers. Almost all of the wholesale merchants and peddlers belonged to the merchants in general and struggled to make a living. At that time there were about 236 Jewish owners of workshops in the district who also eked out a meager existence. This situation remained virtually unchanged up to the beginning of the First World War, except for the growth in the number of furriers at the end of the 19th century, with Zolkiew’s furriers prominent among them, whose reputation spread throughout Galicia.
At the end of the 18th century Zolkiew’s Hebrew print shops were transferred to Lviv by order of the Austrian government. In 1858, a print shop
was established in Zolkiew by two printers, Dov Brish Lurie and Zalman Leib Feliker. Shmuel Pinkas Stiller set up a second printing shop. In 1862,
Yosef Tzvi Balaban opened a third printing shop. These businesses did not survive long, because they couldn’t compete against the large printing
establishments in Lviv.
At the close of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century the community was led by men from among the well-to do residents. Although
their function was limited to matters of religion and population registration, they also had to solve difficult problems such as repayment of the
debts, Jewish taxation, discrimination in the production and marketing of alcoholic drinks, military conscription, the agricultural settlement,
prohibition against traditional Jewish dress, etc.
In the early years of the 19th century Hasidism began to spread through the cities and towns around Zolkiew, although it had not yet taken route in Zolkiew itself. The heads of the community belonged to the camp of the Mitnagdim, while the rabbis who officiated there, such as Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Hirsch, rabbi’s son Shimon Meizlesh and Rabbi Yaakov Orenstein were not inclined toward Hasidism.
Zolkiew already had a small circle of Maskilim. In 1798, at the age of 14, Nachman Krochmel, later to become one of the most important leaders and founders of the Haskala movement in Galicia, came to live in the city. Ranak studied and created in Zolkiew, where he lived until 1836, when he returned to Brody, the city of his birth. His home in Zolkiew became a meeting place not only for the followers of the Maskilim in Zolkiew but for a wide circle of adherents to the Haskala movement throughout Galicia at that time who came to drink from the well of his teachings. In 1821 Ranak stood at the head of the community and influenced its events. Thanks to his initiative, Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Hayut was appointed Rabbi of Zolkiew and the surrounding district. Rabbi Hayut was the first and only rabbi of his time to take the examinations at the University of Lviv and receive the degree of Master of Philosophy. In 1852 Rabbi Hayut moved to Kalish, where he served as rabbi.
Thanks to Ranak and the circle of Maskilim that gathered around him, Zolkiew was considered, alongside Lviv, Tarnopol and Brody, to be an important center of the Haskala movement in Galicia at that time.
As far back as the 1880s Zolkiew had a circle of Maskilim who sought to promote the idea of Zionism. In 1891 the “Poalei Tzedek” benevolent association decided to join the Zionist movement. In 1902-1903 the Zionist union “Dorshei Shlomzion” was established in Zolkiew, followed in 1905 by a branch of “Poalei Tzion” that also organized a professional union of furriers. In 1907 religious youth were organized in a union called “Tzionei Hashachar”. The first Zolkiew Zionists faced extreme opposition from both the Hasidim and the young members of the Enlightenment movement and had a great deal of trouble setting up a Hebrew school, but the Zionists’ public relations efforts eventually bore fruit and their influence among the Jewish population of Zolkiew increased. In the 1914 municipal elections the Zionists won four seats.
The First World War
In August 1914 the Russian armies that took Zolkiew found it almost devoid of Jews, who had fled the city in advance of the attack. In May 1915, with the return of the Austrian army to Zolkiew, town life returned to its normal routine, and with it that of the Jews. The life of the Jewish community was renewed under conditions of the paralyzed economy that prevailed at the time. In 1918 the Zionist union “Dorshei Shlomzion” reconstituted itself and offered classes for study of the Hebrew language, attended by some 80 young people. From November 1918 to June 1919 the Polish government of Zolkiew was reinstated.
Between the two world wars
During this period the city of Zolkiew stagnated. The population declined and, with the exception of an electric power plant that had been there since 1907, no new industrial plants were constructed. The professional occupations of the Zolkiew Jews did not undergo any significant change and trade remained, as it had always been, the primary means of earning a living. In 1920, 300 business owners began to rehabilitate their small shops: about 200 merchants who bought grain and eggs from farmers and sold them to other wholesalers, and about 100 peddlers who sought goods for sale in the farms. In this period the small merchants established a “Small Merchants Union”. The furriers also set up a cooperative. Some 300 people made their living in this trade, but in the slack season they had no source of income. In 1938 about 200 people, mostly hired workers, were unemployed. The other trades people were organized in a union called “Yad Harutzim”, which had its own synagogue.
The professional intelligentsia included about a dozen lawyers and doctors. In the first post-war years the “Joint” came to the aid of the city’s
needy (about 70% of the total Jewish population), which in 1920 supported some 200 households. A central kitchen was opened to serve two free meals
a day to 640 children. Even former Zolkiew residents then living in American cities came to the aid of their former community, sending them food,
clothing and money.
During the period between the wars the influence of the Zionist youth movements increased among the Jews of Zolkiew. The branch of “Poalei Tzion”,
and later the “Poalei Tzion Organization”, were among the city’s strongest Zionist organizations. In 1925 the meeting place of a youth organization
named in honor of B. Borochov was opened next to it. Up to 1939 the local branch of Hashomer Hatzair numbered 60-70 members. In 1929 a branch of
“Hanoar Hatzioni” was opened and a year later a branch of “Betar ” was established. “Hamizrachi” followed in 1922.
The majority of the community’s governing “Vaad” members were Zionists: in the 1921 elections and again in the elections of 1937 five Zionists were elected to the Vaad, along with one representative of “Yad Harutzim” and 2 Hasidim.
In the election to the municipal council held in 1927 Jews (14 of whom were Zionists) won 19 of the 48 contested seats. In subsequent years the
number of Jews elected to the municipal council decreased as a result of election fraud on the part of the regime aimed at weakening the minority
populations.
P.A.S. Rimalt continued to serve as town rabbi during the period between the two world wars. Throughout his term in office he faced the opposition
of the Belz Hassidim, who constitutes the majority of the Hasidim in the community. Prior to the First World War Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Rabinovich,
whose lineage went as far back as Shneur Zalman Baruchovitch, Baal HaTanya, held a Hassidic court in Zolkiew. Because he was a relative by marriage
of the Belz Admor (rabbi), Yehoshua Rokach, the local Belz Hasidim did not oppose him, allowing him to hold his court as the “Admor of Zulkova”.
Even though it had a strong tradition of education, the Zolkiew Jewish community encountered difficulties related to the educational system. The “Talmud Torah” with its 300 pupils that had been established before the First World War faced closure more than once because of hygiene problems and overcrowding. Courses in the Hebrew language were first offered in 1919, but the number of pupils enrolled in them remained small. Continuing education courses were held in Zolkiew under the auspices of the Jewish Organization of Elementary and Secondary Schools of Lviv in 1923-1924, after which they were closed down for lack of funds. Most of the Jewish childfren learned in the general elementary schools, while a few were even accepted into the local government high school. (In 1939 eight Jewish pupils were awarded diplomas there). The meeting halls of the Zionist organizations maintained small libraries. It was only in 1939 that the central Jewish library was opened near the “Jewish Association of Friends of Culture and Art”, in which most of the high school graduates and students became members.
In 1919 a drama circle was established that earned renown for the high quality of its performances of the Jewish and classical non-Jewish repertoires. Drama circles were also established in the meeting halls of the youth movements.
The Second World War
In the very first days of the war Zolkiew was flooded by refugees fleeing from Western Poland. As the German army came closer to the city many of the
refugees continued on from Zolkiew and a group of local residents joined them.
On September 18th 1939 the Germans entered the city and on the same day began to conspire against the Jews with the help of local Ukrainians. According
to the terms of the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty Zolkiew was within the area of Soviet control and on the 23d of September the Germans evacuated the city.
On the next day units of the Red Army appeared that were greeted with feelings of relief by the Jews. Some of the Jews who had fled from the Germans
earlier now returned to the city.
There were large concentrations of refugees in Zolkiew, of two kinds: refugees who had arrived in September and refugees who decided to flee from areas overrun by the Germans in October-November 1939, even though the Soviets made it difficult to cross the border. These were mostly Jews from the Zamosc region who preferred to cross into Soviet-controlled territory and found refuge in nearby Zolkiew.
The local Jewish population extended their help to the refugees who suffered much difficulty in finding work and a place to live. Jews who were Communist activists took part in the local government. In the spring of 1940 several previously wealthy Jewish families were arrested and deport. Private commerce was almost totally halted and almost all Jewish tradesmen were integrated in the cooperatives. At the end of June, 1940 hundreds of Jewish refugees were deported to the interior of the Soviet Union. The Jews of Zolkiew set up a committee to provide assistance to these refugees before they were deported, while they were still gathered in the train station. Even afterwards contact was maintained with them to some degree in their places of exile. As Pesach neared in 1941 packages of food and matzot were sent to the refugees. When the Germans invaded Russian territory the Jews of Zolkiew were seized with panic because of their nearness to the border. Only a few of them were able to escape to the East with the retreating Soviets.
On June 28th 1941 Zolkiew was taken by the Germans who on the next day burned the old Great Synagogue, which had been built back in the days of Sobieski. Corpses were found in the city jail of prisoners who had been murdered by the Soviets before their retreat. This was exploited by the Ukrainians and Poles as an excuse for attacking the Jews. In July of 1941 the Jewish community became the victim of a series of persecutions: they were kidnapped for enforced labor, a nighttime curfew was imposed, they were forbidden to shop in the city marketplace and they were forced to wear a white armband with a Magen David (Star of David) on their right arms. A fine of 250 thousand rubles and 5 kilograms of gold was imposed on them. To assure collection of the fine within 48 hours several hostages were taken.
The Judenrat was established in the same month, headed by Febus Rubinfeld, with Avraham Streich as his executive officer, while Wilhelm Lichtenberg, P. Chatchkiss, A. Chatchkiss, Moshe Sobol, Nathan Apfel, Shimon Wolf, Ephraim Landau, Sander Lifshitz, Yisrael Shapira and others served as members. In time, certain personnel changes took place in the Judenrat. At the same time, a Jewish police force was created with an initial roster of 18 policemen, with Judenrat member P. Chatchkiss as Chief of Police.
The Judenrat and the police force were expected to carry out the orders of the Germans in all matters related to the supply of manpower for compulsory labor, turning over valuables and evicting Jews from homes assigned to German officers for living quarters.
In the fall of 1941 the Germans uprooted the gravestones in the ancient Jewish cemetery and used them to pave city streets and roads in the district. At the end of December the Jews were forced to turn over all furs they kept in their homes.
In the winter of 1941-1942 the distress of hunger was followed by a typhus epidemic. The Judenrat took measures to relieve the distress of the community: they set up communal soup kitchens and provided welfare for the needy, but their means were extremely limited and they could offer little real help to relieve the suffering. The staff of doctors and nurses in the Jewish hospital expended most of its efforts in treating typhus patients in an attempt to reduce the scale of the epidemic.
Even under these conditions of struggle for mere existence educational activity in Zolkiev never stopped. Some 30 teachers organized groups of 6-8 pupils whom they taught in secret. Lessons were held from the end of 1941 to the beginning of 1942. At the beginning of 1942 Jewish men were ordered to report to a medical committee that would determine their physical capacity for work: A — capable of hard physical labor, B — capable of less strenuous work, C – unable to work. This categorization caused deep unrest in the community.
On March 15th 1942 the Germans ordered the Judenrat to furnish a list of Jews who were working and those who weren’t. About 700 people on the list of those who were not working, ill or elderly were then taken from their homes, gathered in the court of the citadel and, following a second examination of the list and further selection, were moved to the railway station where they were loaded on train cars and transported to the Belzec extermination camp. The Juderat and the families of the deported did their best to learn the fate of the deportees. They sent people in the direction of the deportation and tried to get information from the farmers of the area. The truth about the existence of an extermination camp, even though it was only partial and unclear, was uncovered within a short time.
In the summer of 1942 trains from all parts of Eastern Galicia passed through Zolkiev bearing Jews on their way to the Belzec extermination camp. Many deportees tried in every possible way to break out of the cars. Many were killed by gunfire or by injuries they sustained when they jumped from the moving cars. The wounded and those who succeeded in escaping were the targets of manhunts organized by the Germans and the local population. Several escapees reached Zolkiew at that time. The wounded were treated in the hospital at first and later, because of the danger, in private homes. Those who were not injured were kept in hiding. These rescue efforts were undertaken at great risk and in spite of the fear of collective punishment that would be suffered by the entire community.
The second mass Aktion began on November 22d, 1942. In the course of two days the Germans and the Ukrainian policemen kidnapped over 2,000 people and gathered them in the courtyard of the citadel. The captives were denied food and water and their guards treated them with brutality and even shot them. At the end of the Aktion the Jews were loaded onto trains that took them to Belzec. About 300 bodies of Jews who had been murdered in the Aktion were left scattered around the city and the citadel courtyard. Having learned from experience while caring for people from other communities who had jumped from the cars transporting them to Belzec, some of the Jews began to prepare themselves for this possibility. Not a few young people carried with them tools to use in breaking out and many did in fact jump from the cars. Some were killed on the spot. The remnants of the Zolkiew community tried to retrieve their bodies for burial. Only a few managed to jump and save themselves.
On the first of December 1942 a ghetto was designated, bound by Sobievski, Peretz, Reich and Senitzarska streets and the left-hand side of Dominican Square. Jews from other communities in the area, including Kuliczkow, Mosty Vielkie, Dubrovitsa and Glinsko were also forced into the ghetto. During the transfer, the property of the Jews was robbed from them. The ghetto itself was severely overcrowded and people were also housed in the kloizim of the Belz and Zydaczow Hasidim. More than 10 people on the average slept in each room, without sanitary facilities of any kind. The ghetto was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. To leave it was prohibited. Its perimeter was guarded from the outside by German and Ukrainian guards and inside by Jewish policemen. Only organized groups of laborers left the ghetto, under armed guard, for their work places in the city and its surroundings. This situation increased the level of hunger and the typhus epidemic returned with a vengeance. More than 20 people died of the disease every day.
Even within the ghetto the Jews built hiding places in which to conceal themselves from the Aktions. At the beginning of 1943 the Germans divided the Jewish work force into two groups: those who worked in factories producing war materiel and those set to work in the camps by the Germans. There were many who sought to work in these groups in the hope that by doing so they could evade transport to the death camp.
On March 15th 1943 the Germans announced a count of all men fit to work, with the aim of verifying their certifications. Some 600 people were gathered together in Sokol Stadium. Suddenly, police units surrounded the place and Wilhous, one of the commanders of the Janowska camp in Lviv, appeared on the field. The men were all transported by truck to the Janowska camp.
On March 25th the liquidation of the ghetto began. The Germans and their helpers searched the area and forced the remaining Jews from their homes, assembling them in Dominican Square. The Germans and their Ukrainian allies chopped up the floors and walls with axes in an attempt to uncover hiding places. Some of the people found hiding were murdered on the spot. Of those assembled in Dominican Square about 100 men and 70 women were sent to the Janowska camp. About 60 skilled workers were held in a labor camp set up in Sobieski Street. All of the others were taken to Burk Forest, about three kilometers outside of the city, where they were shot and their bodies thrown into pits. In this Aktion the last surviving members of the Judenrat and the Jewish police force were also murdered.
On July 10th 1943 the labor camp was also liquidated and some 40 of its laborers murdered in the woods. The city was officially declared to be Judenrein (clear
of Jews), although the sporadic murder of Jews who were discovered hiding in or near the city continued in the Jewish cemetery.
When the city was finally liberated about 70 survivors were discovered in Zolkiew who, together with those repatriated from the Soviet Union, left the area in
1945-1946 for Eretz Yisrael, Western Europe and the U.S.A.